Back of the Book — June 16, 2018


It's Friday night, June 29, 2018, 22:04, and I've updated this Web page with a bit more about the current scandal involving Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, and a graphic that may explain it all. The original top of this page follows the arrow. ⇒ We've been off the air for six full weeks. We hope that people remember that we're still, sometimes, on the air. We plan to get to a lot of stuff tonight, things regarding the current administration, and natural phenomena, and even a mention about what the program that will air before us will be about, including how I was Uncle Sidney that day. Some science should be discussed as well. If I can I'll try to update this Web page.

Did you know that I've got a brief synopsis of some of the WBAI LSB meetings?

The LSB met on Wednesday, June 13, 2018. I made a written Treasurer's Report for that meeting, and was able to actually give a verbal one as well. You can read the written Treasurer's Report for June 13, 2018.

I have also posted a whole lot of the minutes of the Pacifica National Finance Committee. I'm a member of that committee because I'm the WBAI LSB Treasurer.

The next WBAI LSB meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, July 11, at a location to be announced. The meeting is supposed to start at 7:00 PM.

Some years ago the WBAI LSB voted to hold its regular meetings on the second Wednesday of every month, subject to change by the LSB, which gives us the following schedule:

All of these meetings are set to begin at 7:00 PM.

WBAI has a program schedule up on its Web site. The site has gotten many of the individual program pages together to provide links and such, so check it out.

Here is WBAI's current Internet stream. We can no longer tell if the stream is working without testing every possible stream. Good luck.

WBAI is archiving the programs! WBAI has permanently switched to yet another new archive Web page! This one is more baffling than the previous one. We have to put archive blurb copy in before the program airs. The person in charge of the WBAI Web site says, “If you fail to create a playlist, your show may not show up in the archives at all.” So we made an archive blurb long before the program.

This is a link to the latest version of the official WBAI archive To get to this program you'll have to click on the drop-down menu, which says “Display,” and find Back of the Book on that menu. We're pretty early in the list, so it shouldn't be too difficult. Once you find the program name click “GO” and you'll see a list of programs, most of which are Back of the Book programs. Good luck.

Since the General Manager has banned Sidney Smith from WBAI there's no telling what's on in the alternate week's time slot anymore.

Things have improved this year on the PNB. I'll be trying to update my pages about all of this in the near future.

Bring Back Uncle Sidney!

Our friend, fellow WBAI producer and Saddle Pal Uncle Sidney Smith has been banned from WBAI by General Manager Berthold Reimers. The General Manager will not say why. He won't even tell Sidney why he's banned! This is grossly unfair to Sidney and constitutes abuse of Staff. Why did Berthold ban Sidney?

There's a posting here about it. More to come.

Paul Manafort behind bars
We Hope He Has Company Soon

So one of them is finally seeing the inside of a jail cell. With luck he'll see the inside of a prison cell, and for a long time.

Paul Manafort wan the Trump Campaign for three months. Trump said, upon being told that Manafort was going to jail until his trial, that Manafort hadn't had anything to do with the campaign. Trump will just lie like crazy. He can't be allowed to get away with this.

The Summer Solstice will arrive next Thursday, June 21, 2018, at 6:07 AM (ET). For more on the seasons and sub-seasons look here.

Pickles of the North will be having a few words to say about that the Manchurian President's attacks on Canada during this program, Some of her relatives may have a thing to say as well.

Uncle Sidney's backstage pass, as worn by R. Paul.
When R. Paul was Uncle Sidney

It looks like right before we go on the air WBAI is airing an archival broadcast of Pacifica's coverage of the 1979, March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. I was there. In fact I was Uncle Sidney Smith there! You can see Uncle Sidney's Purple Access pass, and that's what I wore that day.

And about a year and a half later I exposed the scandal around the money that was collected at that march. Yeah, I guess I'll have a thing or two to say about that.

Scott Pruitt's Legal Defense Fund
Scott Pruitt's Tip Jar

We also had a thing or two to say about Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt and his shenanigans.

So this moron Scott Pruitt has not only been starting to devastate the environment that he's supposed to be protecting, he's also looking to behave like some potentate, and to also scrape up a few bucks for himself.

This is the guy who's been flying as expensively as possible, on the tax payer's dime, and who has spent $70,000 on two desks for his office, and an additional $43,000 on a sound-proof security booth. Maybe he saw too many episodes of Get Smart when he was a kid and had really gotten into politics so that he could get a real Cone of Silence.

Pruitt had previously sued the Environmental Protection Agency and was known to be in the pocket of various interests which made money off activities that devastated the environment. He was dirty then, he is worse now. The latest shenanigan from Pruitt involves his legal defense fund. At a May 16, 2018, hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's Interior, Environment and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee Pruitt agreed to have his lawyer meet with government lawyers to make sure that his legal defense fund was operating in a legal manner. Some senators have said that this fund he's collecting money for will be nothing but a tip jar for polluters seeking favorable treatment from his agency. Yeah, the Trump Administration may go down in history as the most corrupt American administration ever.

There are a lot of issues that are considered hazardous to talk about on the air at WBAI, even though the gag rule was lifted in 2002. However, there is the Internet! There are mailing lists which you can subscribe to and Web based message boards devoted to WBAI and Pacifica issues. Many controversial WBAI/Pacifica issues are discussed on these lists.

One open list is the WBAI specific “Goodlight” Web based message board. It is sometimes referred to on Back of the Book as “the bleepin' blue board,” owing to the blue background used on its Web pages. This one has many people posting anonymously and there's also an ancillary “WBAI people” board that's just totally out of hand. The bleepin' blue board had to add a step for folks to get onto it because it was under attack by spambots. When you click on the above link you may be asked for a username and password. Type in Username: poster Password: enternow

UPDATE: In of June 2012, I ended up having to salvage the bleepin' blue board, and so I'm the moderator on it now.

When the computer in Master Control is working we sometimes have live interaction with people posting on the “Goodlight Board” during the program.

Our very own Uncle Sidney Smith, whose program Saturday Morning With the Radio On used to alternate with us, has a blog these days. You can reach his blog here.

One formerly popular mailing list is the “NewPacifica” mailing list. Founded October 31, 2000, this list has been moribund for a couple of years due to de facto censorship by the group owner. As of February 2018, it had 696 subscribers coast to coast, but postings on it are very infrequent now.

Back in the day it sometimes also got a bit nasty. All sorts of things used to happen on this list and official announcements were frequently posted there.

You can look at the NewPacifica list here, and you can join the list from that Web page too. If you subscribe to the “NewPacifica” mailing list you will receive, via E-mail, all of the messages which are sent to that list.

There is the option to receive a “digest” version of the list, which means that a bunch of messages are bundled into one E-mail and sent to you at regular intervals, this cuts down on the number of E-mails you get from the list. You will also be able to send messages to the list.

This list also has a Web based interface where you can read messages and from which you can post your own messages.

We like to stay interactive with our listeners. Here are the various options for you to get in touch with us.

You can also send me E-mail.

And now you can even reach me on Twitter Twitter logo


WBAI related links

WBAI Listeners' Web page

WBAI Management's official Web site

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The contents of this Web page are copyright © 2018, R. Paul Martin.